Jean du Bellay

Jean Cardinal du Bellay

Jean du Bellay or Jean Du Bellay (* 1492 or 1498 at Glatigny Castle in Souday near Le Mans , in what is now Loir-et-Cher ; † February 16, 1560 in Rome ) was a French diplomat and prelate and cardinal from 1535 of the Roman Church .

Life

Du Bellay (in French encyclopedias it is usually under "d") was the son of an old noble family and younger brother of the military leader Guillaume de Langey, who made a name for himself in the wars between France and the German Emperor Charles V. He was urbane, highly educated and literary, especially as a writer of Latin verses.

Presumably through his brother he made contact with King Francis I at an early stage and in 1524 became Bishop of Bayonne with papal dispensation . In February 1524 he received the episcopal ordination, possibly in Rome. In 1530 he became a member of the Privy Council and in 1532 Bishop of Paris.

In 1530, as a patron of the well-known humanist Guillaume Budé , he was involved in the establishment of the Collège des trois langues (= "College of the three languages", i.e. Latin, Greek, Hebrew) and Collège des lecteurs du Roi (= "College The King's Reader ”), which was brought into being by Francis because the Paris theological faculty, the Sorbonne , closed itself off to humanism and in 1523 condemned all Greek and Hebrew studies as heretical.

Between 1527 and 1534 Du Bellay was sent several times by Francis on a diplomatic mission to the English King Henry VIII , who skilfully navigated between France and the Emperor. In the same year 1534 he traveled to Rome to mediate between Henry, who wanted to have his marriage annulled, and Pope Clement VII . However, it ultimately failed because of Emperor Karl, who, as the nephew of Heinrich's wife, tried to prevent the cancellation. Du Bellay was thus inadvertently involved in England's subsequent apostasy from Catholicism.

On his trip to Rome, as well as on several subsequent stays in Rome, he was accompanied by the humanist and novelist François Rabelais , whom he had apparently met in Lyon and employed as a personal physician and partner. During another extended stay in Rome in 1535/36 he was elevated to cardinal priest by the Pope on May 21, 1535 and received the titular church of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere on May 31 of the same year . In 1547 he moved to the titular church of San Pietro in Vincoli .

In the years 1536/37 he was entrusted as royal lieutenant general with organizing the defense of Paris against possible attacks by imperial troops from the Netherlands. In 1538 he accompanied King Franz to a meeting with Emperor Karl in Aigues Mortes .

Around 1540, since he was relatively open to the concerns of the reformers, he was active as a liaison to the Protestant German princes allied in the Schmalkaldic League , the natural ally of his king in his fight against the emperor.

In 1541, 1544 and 1546 he was rewarded for his services by the King (who had the right to dispose of church posts in France) by being appointed Bishop of Limoges , Archbishop of Bordeaux and Bishop of Le Mans (whereby he As was not unusual at the time, he seldom stayed on site, but was represented).

After Franz's death (1547), his influence in Paris declined sharply. After all, he was once again sent on a diplomatic mission to Rome by the new King Henry II , where he stayed for two years and participated in the election of Pope Julius III in 1549 . participated. In 1553 he traveled to Rome again (accompanied by his young relative, the poet Joachim Du Bellay, among others ) and stayed there for more than four years. In 1555 he took part in two papal elections and, after the rapid death of the newly elected Pope Marcellus II , was even considered a candidate for a short time.

In 1556 he fell out of favor with King Heinrich. In the following years he stayed mainly in Rome, where he owned a magnificent palace and where he finally died.

Today his name is best known as that of a patron of important writers such as the humanist Guillaume Budé , the novelist François Rabelais (who was associated with him for almost twenty years as a personal physician and frequent travel companion) or the poet Joachim du Bellay , a nephew of the second degree.

He should not be confused with the eponymous bishop of Poitiers, Jean du Bellay († 1479).

Works

• Letters, 1529– (see below, under “Modern Editions”: Correspondance ... ).
• Francisci primi Francorum regis Epistola apologetica ,. 1542.
• Poemata ,. 1546.

Modern editions

• Correspondance du Cardinal Jean Du Bellay. I. 1529-1535. Publ. Par Rémy Scheurer. Klincksieck, Paris 1969.
• Correspondance du Cardinal Jean Du Bellay. II. 1535-1536. Publ. Par Rémy Scheurer. Klincksieck, Paris 1973.
• Jean du Bellay: Poemata. Texts établis, traduits et annotés by Geneviève Demerson; with the collaboration of Richard Cooper. Société des textes français modern, Paris 2007, ISBN 978-2-86503-279-2 .
• Correspondance du Cardinal Jean Du Bellay. III. 1537-1547. Publ. Par Rémy Scheurer and Loris Petris, avec la collab. de David Amherdt and Isabelle Chariatte. Société de l'histoire de France, Paris 2008, ISBN 978-2-35407-111-0 .
• Correspondance du Cardinal Jean Du Bellay. IV. 1547-1548. Publ. Par Rémy Scheurer, Loris Petris et David Amherdt, avec la collab. de Nathalie Guillod. Société de l'histoire de France, Paris 2011, ISBN 978-2-35407-135-6 .
• Correspondance du Cardinal Jean Du Bellay. V. 1549-1550. Publ. Par Rémy Scheurer, Loris Petris et David Amherdt, avec la collab. de Nathalie Guillod. Société de l'histoire de France, Paris 2012, ISBN 978-2-35407-137-0 .

Web links

Commons : Jean du Bellay  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• You Bellay, Jean. In: Salvador Miranda : The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. ( Florida International University website), accessed February 3, 2017.
• Entry on Jean du Bellay on catholic-hierarchy.org ; Retrieved February 3, 2017.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Du Bellay, Jean. In: Salvador Miranda : The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. ( Florida International University website , English)

predecessor	Office	successor
Gian Pietro Carafa	Dean of the College of Cardinals 1555–1560	François de Tournon
Gian Pietro Carafa	Cardinal Bishop of Ostia e Velletri 1555–1560	François de Tournon
Gian Pietro Carafa	Cardinal Bishop of Porto e Santa Rufina 1553–1555	Rodolfo Pio da Carpi
Gian Pietro Carafa	Cardinal Bishop of Frascati 1553	Rodolfo Pio da Carpi
Rodolfo Pio da Carpi	Cardinal Bishop of Albano 1550–1553	Juan Álvarez y Alva de Toledo
René du Bellay	Bishop of Le Mans 1542–1556	Charles d'Angennes de Rambouillet
François de Poncher	Bishop of Paris 1532–1551	Eustache du Bellay
Hector d'Ailly de Rochefort	Bishop of Bayonne 1524–1532	Etienne de Poncher